On the First Day of Christmas
by ordinaryavengers
Summary: How baking a Christmas cake ends up being the exact opposite of a cock-block for Tony.


They're making a Christmas cake and Steve is humming Christmas carols under his breath as he carefully measures out two cups of premium flour and empties them into a mixing bowl. Tony hovers by his shoulder and tries to stand on his toes and lean over Steve to see. After a few fruitless attempts, he backs off and goes to the refrigerator, opens it and stands in the doorway, letting cold air escape into the kitchen. "Tony," he hears Steve say from the other side of the kitchen, "close the fridge."

Tony huffs and says, "you can't make me, Capsicle." He takes the carton of juice out of the fridge and rips open the top. Steve straightens up and turns around, making a face at him. "Tony."

"Yes?" Tony answers, the carton halfway to his mouth. Steve takes two strides across the kitchen and plucks the carton from Tony's hand. "Don't drink straight from the carton."

He pours Tony a glass of juice and hands it to him.

"All right, Captain Control Freak," he says and starts chugging the juice before Steve can spot his smile. He puts his glass down on the counter. Steve rolls his eyes and puts the juice back in the fridge.

"All right!" Tony announces and claps his hands together. "Let's do this, um- this cake thing."

Steve nods knowingly and repeats, "this cake thing. Do you even know how to make a cake?"

"Um," Tony says, rather affronted and scoffs, "of course I know how to make a cake."

"Mm," says Steve.

Tony rubs his temple, leaving a faint smudge on his skin and Steve leans closer to examine it. "Tony, did you even wash your hands?"

Tony flaps a hand in his face. "Yes of course I did, Capsicle, my hands are very clean."

"I'm sure they are," Steve says, steers him to the sink and turns the tap on. Steve preheats the oven while Tony finishes washing his hands and wipes them on his shirt. "Soooo," he says.

He picks up the bag of flour, peers inside and then starts to tip it into the mixing bowl. Two seconds later, Steve lets out a sudden 'Tony!' and lunges over him to grab the flour from Tony's clutch.

"Yes?" Tony answers with his best shit eating grin while Steve gives him a reproachful look. He says, "I literally just measured the flour." He looks into the bowl, shakes his head sadly and says, "now there's too much."

Tony practically preens. Steve picks up the butter, hands it to Tony and sends him to weigh and divide it. Instead of doing that, Tony delights in cutting it up into small cubes with a steak knife he finds in the dish rack.

"Tony," Steve reprimands without looking up from where he's measuring the milk, "weigh the butter, Tony."

When Steve finishes and turns around, he let's out a small yelp and attempts to rescue the butter before Tony can destroy the rest of it. "That," Tony points at the butter smears on the counter, "is not my fault. No one warned me it was that slippery."

"You could've used a chopping board," Steve points out. Tony ignores him and peers into the small bowl where he's managed to collect some of his butter cubes.

"Look," he says to Steve, pulling him over by the sleeve with his greasy fingers and pointing into the bowl gleefully, "that looks like the right amount."

Steve peers into the bowl as well and then lets out a long suffering sigh. "That looks nothing like the right amount," he corrects.

He places his hands on Tony's shoulders and herds him away from the butter and then starts to fix it. Tony imitates him for a minute and then he grabs a handful of flour from the bowl, tosses it in the air and blows it all over Steve. "Tony! Tony, what are you-"

Steve reaches into the flour bowl with his free hand and sprinkles it over Tony's head in retaliation.

"Ooooooh, it is so on, Rogers!" Tony hoots, grabbing another handful and smearing it all over Steve's shirt.

Steve closes his eyes to stop the powder getting in his eyes and tosses another handful at Tony and Tony wipes his buttery, flour-covered fingers over Steve's cheek.

"You are a gigantic menace, Tony St-"

Steve lets out a gigantic sneeze, doubling over and Tony starts laughing, not stopping until he's trying to regain his breath with great hiccups of air. Steve shakes his head incredulously but his smile is affectionate. "All right," he says, "the cake's not gonna make itself."

After taking a cursory glance at the mixing bowl, which now has bits of butter and flour scattered all over it, Steve says, "we still need eggs and sugar."

"Eggs!" Tony repeats and goes to stand in front of the fridge. "How many eggs do we need," he ponders to himself while Steve tips out a generous amount of sugar.

When he gets no response, Tony fishes an entire carton out of the fridge, and brings it back to the counter. "Here's one for you," he says, picking one up and tossing it into the air. Steve reaches out to catch it before it hits the counter. He cracks it against the side of the bowl and then tosses the shell in the bin. Tony is watching him scrupulously and Steve laughs as he pieces it together.

"Have you never cracked an egg before in your life?"

"What?" Tony says with a mock-affronted look, "of course I have. I mean, between inventing important things forty hours a day and being threatened by Pepper, learning to crack eggs was my highest priority."

Steve nods solemnly, "of course it was." Tony nods, too. "Besides," he adds, "cracking eggs can't be that hard."

Then he proceeds to smash an egg on the counter-top, crush the shell with his fingers and only gets about half the egg ends up in the bowl. The other half trails to the counter-top and when he looks down, there's some egg on the floor, too.

"Oops," he says and Steve starts laughing.

"Shut up, Steve," Tony says, shoving him fondly and when he doesn't stop laughing, Tony picks up another egg, cracks it against the counter and drops it down Steve's back. Steve lets out an undignified yelp and grabs his own egg, cracking it on Tony's head.

"God, this is disgusting, Steve," he grumbles when they've both stopped laughing. "You started it," Steve points out and Tony considers it for a second. He shrugs. Steve grabs the mixing spoon and hands it to Tony, who's face practically lights up with glee. He grabs the spoon with both hands and starts implementing warp-speed-merry-go-round on the cake mix.

"The bowl! Tony, grab the bowl!"

Tony doesn't grab the bowl so Steve is forced to do them both a favour and grab it before everything starts flying everywhere. "Hang on," Steve says after another half minute of vigorous mixing, "we should add some flavor."

He goes and rummages around in the pantry until he finds a small bottle labelled 'Vanilla Essence.'

"We should add some green or red food colouring," Tony calls over to him, "y'know, cos Christmas."

Steve rummages around in the pantry some more until he finds green food colouring.

"Here we go," he says, opening the bottles at the counter.

He measures out three teaspoons of the vanilla like a committed baker that he is and adds it to the mix as Tony continues to mix himself into a healthy coma. Steve opens the food colouring hesitantly and gives the churning mix a dubious look. Tony sees him and stops. He brightens.

"I can do that," he announces, relinquishing his grip on the spoon. He plucks the bottle from Steve and raises his arm high over the bowl as he tips it.

"You know that stuff stains your clothes and your ski- TONY!"

Tony laughs diabolically as a bit of the dye splashes onto his shirt. Steve sputters a bit, then he covers Tony's hand with his own to stop the dye. Another vigorous stirring session later, Tony tries to sneak a finger into the mix and taste it but Steve catches his wrist first.

"Tony, no."

Since he can't put his finger in his mouth, Tony leans forwards and licks it off instead. He grins smugly at Steve.

Steve stares at him. There is a long moment of silence and then Steve picks up the spoon and wipes cake mix onto Tony's nose. Tony jerks back slightly in surprise at the green mix now on his nose.

Steve chuckles at Tony's stunned face and then Tony dips two fingers into the bowl, coating them in green cake mix. Steve's chuckling subsides and he takes a step back. "Oh no, Tony," he says.

"Oh yes, Tony," Tony says and takes a step forwards. Steve takes another step back. "C'mon," Tony says, "just some war stripes."

"Pleeeeeease," he adds. Steve gives him a look, the look that says why-is-this-happening-to-me and then he sighs. Tony takes that as a 'yes, of course!' so he leans up on his toes, balancing with his hand on one of Steve's shoulders and carefully paints two green war stripes underneath Steve's right eye.

Steve puts the cake in the oven while Tony checks out the star spangled glory of his backside before he straightens up and says, "time to make the icing." Tony gives him a strained look and says, "make the icing?"

Steve pauses with a carton of milk in his hand. "Um," he says, "yes, Tony?"

Tony goes to the pantry and rummages around until he finds what he's looking for and pulls out a can of frosting. He holds it up victoriously. "But we have this."

Steve eyes him for a long moment of incredulous silence and then he says, "icing comes in cans now?" Tony yanks off the cap and squeezes some onto his finger. He puts it in his mouth. "Mmmhm," he says around his finger.

Steve stares at him until he shakes the can and says, "look! Open your mouth." When he does, Tony leans up on his toes and tries to squeeze it into his mouth. Instead, he completely misses and gets it all over the countertop. Steve catches a blob as it flies past his face and wipes it on Tony's cheek.

Tony stands in stunned silence, again.

"Oh my God," he says finally. He grabs a huge dollop off the countertop, reaching up to slap it onto Steve's head, except Steve catches his wrist first.

"Nuh, uh," Steve crows, holding Tony's hand out to the side so that it's too far to get any on him. Tony smirks and tilts his head up. "You think you're hot stuff, don't you?" he teases.

Steve smiles affectionately down at him. "Totally," he says.

Tony hasn't realised how close they are until he takes half a step back and find his back coming into contact with the wall. Steve takes a step forward, well into Tony's space.

"Uh, hi?" he whispers.

"Hi," Steve replies, still smiling gently and then he leans down and kisses Tony, softly, like he thinks Tony might try and make an escape. Which, well- anyway.

Tony stiffens and then relaxes slightly, and then he breathes oh against Steve's lips and kisses him back earnestly, wrapping his arms around Steve's neck. Steve smiles for a moment and leans closer, slipping his hands down to rest them on Tony's waist.

They just kiss and kiss and then Tony pulls on Steve's neck to deepen the kiss except Steve has different ideas. He breaks away and leans his forehead against Tony's.

"Hi, Tony" he whispers and Tony's heart actually, really skips a beat. "Hi, Steve," he says and Steve says, "we still have a cake to finish, and I insist on making our own icing."

Tony lets out a giddy laugh and Steve steps back from him. "Here," Steve hands him the butter. "Weigh it properly this time."

Halfway through making the icing, Tony has red dye streaked across his face and icing sugar all over his shirt. He turns to Steve and asks dopily, "did you really kiss me?"

Steve's smile is fond and amused. "I did," he says leaning closer to Tony, "do you want me to do it again?"

"Yes," is Tony's answer so Steve kisses him again. It starts off chaste until Tony makes a low sound in his throat and then there's tongue and a bit of teeth and the kiss is dirty. In an instant, Steve has him pressed against the counter and Tony doesn't care when his right hand ends up in the icing bowl. Steve sneaks his hand up the back of Tony's shirt and his fingers are damp and sticky from the mix. Tony jerks a bit in surprise and Steve grins against his lips.

"Uh, bedroom?" Tony croaks and then he winces. "Too soon?"

"Absolutely not," Steve murmurs and then, because this is his life, the timer for the oven goes off and Steve seems to realise that Tony's hand is in the icing bowl.

"Your hand is in the icing bowl," he points out and Tony says, "I know." Steve goes to the oven and peers inside before opening it and taking out the cake. He sets it down on the counter.

"It smells good," Tony says as he washes icing off his hand. "It does," Steve answers and then his mouth is right next to Tony's ear. He whispers, "but I think we can finish it later."

The third stunned silence of the day is remedied by Tony turning around and grabbing two handfuls of Steve's filthy shirt and pulling him forwards. "You've got egg in your hair," Steve mutters in between kisses and Tony laughs as he pulls Steve out of the kitchen.

"And you're equally as disgusting but I still want to take you to bed," he says and Steve grins.


End file.
